occupy wall street

The first wave of Occupy Wall Street protestors returned to Zuccotti Park this morning, after being evicted by police last night. Photo by Chris Palmer

Occupy Wall Street protestors arrived back to Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan at around 10:30 this morning, chanting, yelling and skirting dangerously close to a confrontation with police, who had barricaded the park after evicting protestors last night.

The police refused to allow protestors to re-enter the park, violating a temporary restraining order issued by the New York Supreme Court barring cops from keeping protestors out.

Many protestors held copies of the court order in their hands, while chanting “We have a court order!” and “You are breaking the law!” towards police.

Jonas Marton, 29, a lawyer with the National Lawyers Guild, was shocked that the police were not obeying the court’s ruling.

“It’s pretty staggering,” he said.

He explained that at 11:30 today, a judge would hear a final ruling on whether the protestors could occupy the park, but the temporary restraining order declared it legal for protestors to enter the park until that final decision was made.

Why, then, were police not allowing anyone in?

“(Orders) have got to be coming down from the top,” he said, adding that he meant Mayor Bloomberg and police chief Ray Kelly.

“(The police) have taken it upon themselves to reinterpret the law,” said Spencer Gray, 23 of Park Slope,Brooklyn.

Gray said he thought that the raid was hypocritical of police, who stood near signs saying that the park was open, and that he wouldn’t be surprised if police started arresting large numbers of people.

“It’s been ridiculous, and I think this is a prime example,” he said.

“I think it’s a shameful day,” said Robert Reiss, 55, of Murray Hill, Manhattan. “The mayor is missing in action on every moral issue.”

In the absence of being able to enter the park, protestors circled around the barricaded perimeter, many holding angry or profane signs about Mayor Bloomberg and the police.

When the mob first returned to the area of the park after marching from City Hall, several protestors removed barricades around the outer sidewalk surrounding the park. Just when it appeared that a confrontation between the swelling mob of protestors and the wall of police inside the park was inevitable, protestors began circling the park, apparently deciding that entering would result in chaos.

They continued to circle the park for an hour afterwards. Some stood along the barricades and asked police why they were refusing to allow protestors in.

“They say they’re following orders,” said a man who identified himself only as Billy W., 23 of Bedford Styuvesant, Brooklyn.

For most protestors, though, that explanation wasn’t good enough.

“This is revolutionary territory, and the mayor is thwarting it,” said Reiss.

With a crackdown of Occupy Wall Street protestors in other cities across the country, the group in the epicenter of it all in Zuccotti Park is scheduling a massive day of “direct action” on Thursday with aims to have protestors occupying every block of New York City.

Bold flyers are being spread through social media via Twitter, urging followers to “Occupy Every Block,” and use the hashtag, #N17. A Facebook event is also in the works. Protests are expected to begin at 7 a.m. in front of the New York Stock Exchange where demonstrators will use “mass non-violent direct action” to “Shut Down Wall Street.”

The plan is for the protest to spread across the five boroughs simultaneously at 3 p.m. as protesters take over 16 central subway stations and ride into the city as one unit.

A presence of unity is one that the protestors have worked to develop. Bret Rothstein, 24, a member of the OWS press working group, explains that embracing togetherness has already occurred at Zuccotti Park.

“The goal is getting everybody together, all the occupations,” Rothstein said. “We are all obviously on the same page, we are all here for the same common goal.”

Michael Frock, wears red paint from a morning meditation session in Zuccotti Park. Frock believes Thursday's Day of Action will be huge for the movement. Photo by Joann Pan

Michael Frock, 24, from the Upper East Side, has been occupying Zuccotti Park for approximately a month and believes the Day of Action will be big for the movement.

“I would love to see all the 99 percent go home, not go to work, not go to school and occupy with their families,” he said.

The movement is about letting the government know that citizens are upset and giving those living in frustration an arena to speak, according to Frock.

“If enough people do that on one day it will make the message loud and clear,” he said. “The message is that, ‘You can’t live without us.’ [The 1 percent] treats us like we are invisible, so now we are going to act as if we were, and see how they do on that day.”

Chris Carter, 28, believes the Day of Action, will bring the various groups in different cities. Photo by Joann Pan

Chris Carter, 28, from Bethlehem, Pa., said the Day of Action will be a step towards making the various occupations and their corresponding communities cohesive parts of the global movement.

“It shows that it’s not just city to city, but that we are all connected,” Carter said. “Hopefully it will show the solidarity we have, not just with the people in occupations, but all together. We are all a part of the 99 percent.”

Molly Smith, 35, of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, who was crocheting hats for those in Zuccotti Park on Sunday, is unsure of whether she will partake in the Day of Action. Still, she said she fully supports the idea.

“I like that idea. I really wonder if I would be gutsy enough to walk out of my school,” said Smith, a teacher in the West Village. “But I talk about it at lunch all the time and I can’t believe how little people know of it in terms of how it would affect them.”

Zuccotti Park was overflowing with people this morning, as protestors celebrated a postponement of the cleanup that was scheduled by the park's management company, Brookfield Properties, and endorsed by Mayor Bloomberg. Photo by Chris Palmer

A euphoric, carnival-like atmosphere crested upon an overflowing Zuccotti Park early this morning, as Occupy Wall Street protestors celebrated news that a Mayor Bloomberg-endorsed cleanup of the park by its managing company, Brookfield Properties, was postponed.

Many protestors viewed the cleanup, which was scheduled for 7:00 a.m., as an excuse for the city to evict protestors from the park. When news spread that it had been postponed, deafening chants of “We are the 99 percent” and “This is what democracy looks like” echoed through Lower Manhattan as the sun rose between towering skyscrapers.

“This means we won this round,” said Jeff Smith, a 41-year old protestor from Washington Heights, holding a smartphone that displayed his Twitter feed, which was flooded with Tweets displaying the news.

“The bigger this gets, the more people, the harder it becomes to shut down,” he said.

“This is such a cliché, but I’m kind of speechless,” said Rami Schamir, 30, from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Schamir noted that protestors had spent much of the week cleaning the park with borrowed and newly purchased mops and brooms, and he thought the cleanup’s postponement was a sign of recognition that the occupation doesn’t need the city’s help.

“We did the cleanup, and we did it really, really well,” he said. “We can govern ourselves.”

Other protestors were a bit more guarded with their reaction, and some wondered whether this was just another move in a long game of chess between the city and the occupiers.

“I feel like it might just be a trick,” said Luke Gitar, a 28-year old from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Gitar said he thought that the postponement represented a small victory, but he was wary of potential action that Mayor Bloomberg might take to clear the park in the future.

“I think he hates this, and I think he’s pretty smart,” he said. “This was not the moment (for an eviction).”

Jay Sullivan, 30, of Kensington, Brooklyn, wondered if there was ever an actual plan to clean the park. But if there was a plan in place, he said, the postponement was probably due to the size of Friday’s crowd.

“I didn’t expect this many people to show up to defend the park,” he said while standing at the park’s north edge, where pedestrian traffic was bottlenecked to a snail’s pace.

“I’m thrilled this many people showed up,” said Sullvain’s friend, Laine Bonstein, 27, from Kensington, Brooklyn.

The massive crowd chanted, danced to the beat of drums and listened to a variety of protestors preach victory and solidarity, and as the fervor escalated, some began to spontaneously march up Broadway to celebrate.

For one morning, at least, the protestors, who to this point had been defined by their feelings of disenfranchisement and powerlessness, were united by a sense of accomplishment.

“First they ignore us, then they belittle us, then they fear us, then we win,” said Smith. “This is the first sign that they’re kind of scared.”

“We’ve all worked really hard,” said Schamir. “This just shows (that) what we’re doing is right.”

For most New Yorkers, Occupy Wall Street’s enigmatic protests remained distant, quarantined in a small area of Lower Manhattan. But after Tuesday’s romp through the Upper East Side, protestors took the first steps to break free of their mold.

Unlike the previous marches through Union Square and on the Brooklyn Bridge, Tuesday’s march had not only a unique setting, but also a specific purpose: to modify the tax code that the protestors said benefitted the rich.

“Very few people realize how rigged the (tax) system is and how much these people are benefitting from this rigged system,” said Kaprym Broido, a 26-year-old East Harlem resident. “And that’s why we are such a threat, because it’s a very small portion of the population that is actually benefitting from this system.”

In order to make their message concrete, the group unabashedly trekked through one of New York City’s most affluent neighborhoods, embarking from 59th Street and 5th Avenue and traveling all the way to 93rd Street and Park Avenue. During the march, the group made pit stops in front of the houses of some of New York City’s most influential and affluent residents.

The first stop was media mogul and billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s sleek Fifth Avenue pad overlooking Central Park. Clumped together in mass in front of Murdoch’s door, the protestors yelled out, “Come out and face the people you left out!”

To no one’s surprise, Murdoch did not show.

“Of course they are not going to come out,” said Jonathon Lipski, 25, of the Upper East Side. “It would be wonderful if they did come out and show their true colors, but they never will.”

Such was the theme of the march; with nothing more than doors to shout at, the group resorted to half-serious appeals at doormen to join their ranks, waving at onlookers crowded atop balconies and jeering toward window displays of some of the area’s more posh boutiques.

In fact, with so many stark contrasts to previous marches, it was only fitting that this march would not result in arrests and violence. The protestors avoided a police barricade in front of JP Morgan CEO Jamie Diamond’s residence that would have sent them spilling into the streets and into the arms of police officers.

“I would say a march without arrests is a good thing,” Broido said. “We have permits to be on a certain path, the goal is to stay on that path.”

Instead the group remained focused on the central theme of taxes and the rich, stopping at homes of businessman David Koch, real estate developer Howard Milstein, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Diamond, and finally hedge fund manager John Paulson in order to affront awareness.

“This march is part of a multi-pronged strategy,”Lipski said. “It’s a message to the masses, to those too busy trying to get by to actually to actually take action. The march is about awareness.”

And according to Michael Blan, 61, of Greenwich Village, part of increasing general awareness involves letting the wealthy know that those protesting are aware.

“This (march) is just to let these people know that we know where they are and who they are,” said Blan, as the group assembled a block away from Paulson’s home. “All this talk about, well the top 5 percent pay 60 percent of the taxes, well they have 90 percent of the money. They should pay more.“

David Everitt-Carlson, 55, paints signs for Occupy Wall Street protests on Columbus Day. His advertising agency in New York went bankrupt after 9/11, leaving him unemployed and homeless. Photo By: Mina Sohail

Sitting in a cardboard box turned into a makeshift shelter at the Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park yesterday, David Everitt-Carlson painted a sign that read, “I think outside my box.”

Carlson, 55, has been living in a midtown homeless shelter, but has made daily treks to Zuccoti Park, painting signs and protesting what he believes are the issues that led to his unemployment.

A former advertising executive, he has been unemployed for about a year and is an example of the frustration that many of the protestors say they feel.

“I’m here because I don’t have a job,” he said. “I’m a senior person, I should be paid decent, but no one’s hiring.”

Carlson said the preoccupation of the government was with war and bailing banks out, not with helping Americans.

“The government has been in war for 10 years,” he said. “But I can’t find a single person who has benefitted from it.”

Carlson drew a pie chart on paper and shaded a portion to illustrate his point.

“This is the military spending in the world and America occupies 45 percent of it,” he said.

With thousands of people holding signs and chanting slogans, Carlson sat among dozens of posters and said he finds peace in painting slogans he comes up with himself. He takes his time with each one.

“Since 1:30 a.m. I have been working on one panel,” he said. “It’s 6:00 p.m. now.”

He said that the material for the signs and paint was donated. A nearby sign that he had painted two weeks ago was placed in front of a tree. It read, “The medium is the message.”

Carlson learned sign painting in college to make money. He uses that skill now to help the movement, he said.

In 1979 he graduated from Southern Illinois University where he majored in corporate communications and minored in journalism. Later, he worked in the advertising industry and in 1995 was transferred to Korea by the agency he worked for. The company did not do well, so in 1997 he returned and opened his own international advertising agency in New York.

“As the planes hit the World Trade Center on 9/11, the financial crisis hit my business and my company crashed in a week,” he said. “I didn’t have a single billing after 9/11 and I had people to pay.”

Carlson said when President George Bush coined the term “axis of evil” his American clients did not want to invest in Korea and Korean clients did not want to invest in America, which killed his business.

He said the economy has been bad ever since.

Carlson is divorced and he has no children. He does have an 82-year-old father and two younger sisters, but they would not understand his plight.

“This whole situation is above my family’s heads,” he said.

Carlson carries his laptop everywhere and blogs his journey as a homeless man.